


Hell Hounds Don't Heel

by WareWolf



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29584134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WareWolf/pseuds/WareWolf
Summary: When Bobby and Crowley's adopted teen Kyra is summoned to the principal's office, a parent has to show up but Bobby Singer is unwell.  That leaves the King of Hell to fill the role, much to the horror of everyone.The character of Kyra is from my Best Endeavours series but hopefully this story is ok to be read as a stand alone.  For that reason I haven't marked it as part of that series but if anyone is tracking, it happens a few months after the events of A Step Back From World's End.____________________________________________________
Relationships: Crowley/Bobby Singer
Kudos: 13





	Hell Hounds Don't Heel

“It’s the school.”

“Is she skipping again?”

“No idea, love, they didn’t say.” 

Bobby Singer pulled a handkerchief out from under his pillow, examined it for any unused material and tossed it in despair, sniffing hard before reluctantly accepting the phone. “Hello?” 

It came out as a croak vaguely resembling English and there was a noticeable hesitation from the person at the other end. Then, “Mr Singer?”

“Yeb, sorry, I mean yes.”

“You sound _terrible_ , “ said the youthful-sounding woman at the other end, very earnestly and uselessly. “Ah, I’m sorry, but this really can’t wait. I can give the message to the person who first answered….”

“No, no,” Bobby said hastily, “thad’s fine, I can talk. He’s nod allowed.”

Again she paused then evidently decided the weirdness of the answer could be put down to his apparent illness. “Okay. I’m afraid I have to tell you we have your daughter Kyra in the principal’s office.”

“Whad’s she done now?”

“It’s a bit complicated, Mr Singer, but it involves fighting. One of the kids involved has had to go to the hospital and, well, Kyra won’t tell us anything about what’s happened and is being rather defiant. We really need you or….well, a guardian to come down and talk to Ms Kaur before we can let Kyra leave.”

“Good lug stobbing her,” Bobby muttered. Crowley, the King of Hell, smirked from where he perched on the end of Bobby’s bed.

“Excuse me?”

“Nevermid – mind. Okay. I’ll be there soon.” He hung up over whatever else she was saying and glared at Crowley.

“What did _I_ do?” Crowley sighed, drew a fresh blood-red handkerchief out of midair and handed it to Bobby, who used it copiously before he could sit back and take a cautious breath.

“I need some of thad stuv which dries up your nose….”

Crowley raised his eyebrows theatrically. “You had medication less than two hours ago, Robert, and I can’t possibly give you any more yet. Also, if you go to the school as you are, you’ll not only make yourself sicker but you will pass your germs on to everyone you meet including Kyra. You’re the one who made her stay out of your room since yesterday.”

“Cand you do something?” Bobby pleaded.

“Of course I can _. I’ll_ go and talk to the school staff and have her out of there in minutes. I’m sure it’s only a foolish misunderstanding.”

“Crowley, you cand do it lie that. You have to make them think you’re listening to them and make Kyra apologise and promise nod to do it again.” Bobby sneezed once more and heard the crackling wheeze of his own breath in his chest. It sounded like he was hosting an entire swamp. 

“So you agree I’ll go?”

The hunter sighed. “I cand see another way. I can’t even ged out of bed. Ogay – okay, but you’ll do it lie - like I said? Promise?”

“Of course, darling. Been selling sin to saints for centuries, remember? A school principal isn’t even in that ball park.” He got up and came to kiss Bobby, ignoring Bobby’s attempt to deflect him. “You know I can’t catch anything you have. And if Kyra was fighting, you know she would have a good reason.”

“I know. But you cand say thad.” Bobby knew the truth of it. Their ward and foster child was being trained as a hunter, had been since she crossed paths with them at twelve years old. She was a nearly-fifteen year old girl who could use martial arts and straight out brawl like a trucker. And _win_ those brawls, unless her opponent knew his or her stuff very well. Up against some ordinary teenager, or several by the sound of it, she would sort them out in minutes, with serious force. Too many kids did _not_ know not to pick fights with Kyra Singer, or tease her.

She didn’t take that sort of thing well at all. But she had, under Bobby’s pleading and sometimes orders, managed to keep a lid on things for the most part since she’d returned to the public school system following a period of homeschooling. And a six months interruption to studies to work on magic with Rowena McLeod.

“Sid down,” Bobby told him. “If you telepord there, you’ll freag – freak them out if it’s only three minudes since they called.”

Crowley did and they looked at one another ruefully. _I must look like a complete hobo_ , Bobby thought. He was a sweaty mess and not, as Crowley would say, in a good way. He was propped up in bed by all the pillows in the house, hair in disarray, wearing only boxer shorts under the covers. Crowley, in a complete contrast, was dressed like the front cover of a gentlemen’s magazine, one of the classy ones. His suit was charcoal grey, his shirt palest pink, with a matching pocket square, the tie an elegantly striped pink and grey silk. Bobby had been trying to persuade him to vary his wardrobe and this was one of the less out-there results. 

“At least tayg off the tie before you go,” he said, after several minutes of silence. It was restful. It had been quite surreal, realising that Crowley could be with him and just be quiet. Helped if he was worn out first, of course…. At least being sick meant Bobby had gotten some rest of a different kind.

“Nonsense, I intend to impress,” said Crowley, smirking again. “Get some rest, Robert.” He paused before he got up. “You will be all right on your own while I’m gone?” That was a flicker of definite worry, Bobby thought, and he squeezed Crowley’s hand remorsefully. 

“Yeah. See you soon.”

“See you soon, lover. Gather your strength.” Bobby managed a grin. _I swear he can read my mind! Or he reads something!_

Crowley patted him lightly somewhere he wouldn’t have done with any witnesses - Bobby devoutly hoped – and winked out.

*

 _Oh no_. Kyra, banished to the Bad Chair in Kaur’s office and playing nervously with the zip of her jacket, looked at the male fashion vision who entered with eyes of despair. She’d known Bobby was probably too sick to attend but had clung to the vain hope that he might talk Jody into bailing her. They’d have to let a police officer take her, wouldn’t they? 

Crowley’s resplendent appearance made her feel intensely grubby, even if she hadn’t added blood to her shirt front since breaking Brian Sullivan’s nose. Her jeans had been clean on that morning and the black T-shirt nearly so; that was the best that could be said. At least since she’d cropped her hair short, she didn’t have to worry about combing it.

“No problem at all,” he was saying airily to Haep Kaur, the principal, as she walked back in beside him. “I was able to postpone the meeting – and put our schedule on hold for an hour. One’s children must come first, isn’t that right?”

Kaur didn’t seem to know whether to take him seriously or not. He’d plainly already gone to work on her mind, Kyra thought, trying desperately not to laugh and keep the proper expression of repentance on her face. The principal had been thrown off by Crowley’s promptness. Still, he’d saved her some lecturing. Kaur had barely gotten started when her secretary had come to tell her “one of Kyra’s fathers is here.”

“I certainly didn’t expect you to leave your business to come in, Mr Crowley,” Kaur said. “But I understand your husband is rather ill?”

“Just a bad cold, he says, but he’s _quite_ miserable,” Crowley agreed, giving her a beaming smile, which he dropped instantly when he turned to fix Kyra in his sights. “Now, young lady, what’s this all about?”

“Nothing.”

“She was caught fighting with three other students,” Kaur told him. “One of them has had to be taken to hospital to be checked over.”

Crowley let that remain in the air for long enough that Kaur could hear what she was saying. By her annoyed air, she knew he was letting her hang herself. “So, one against three?” Crowley drawled, playing up the Cockney. Kaur nodded, lips tight. “Girls or boys or a mix?”

“Boys.”

“Same grade?”

“Yes.”

“Has the school nurse – I imagine schools still have nurses? – checked my daughter over?” He noted Kyra’s slight start at his calling her his daughter. As far as the outside world knew, she was his and Bobby’s legally adopted child, but both Crowley and Kyra saw their relationship more as allies, even friends. 

Kaur sighed in defeat. “Yes. Kyra has some bruising but she’s basically unhurt. She’s very, um, athletic.” Now the principal regarded the ceiling as though seeking inspiration from On High. Crowley amused himself briefly by considering her reaction if he told her she’d have a lot more luck appealing to the scion of Hell currently in her office. 

“So because she’s not hurt, she’s in trouble for beating up three boys who are, one presumes, average physical specimens? Not ninety pound weaklings?”

“Other students have said she began it,” Kaur retorted. “Brian wasn’t expecting a girl to try to hit him for real and he didn’t dodge.”

“Bored, were you?” Crowley asked Kyra, a flash of his real self showing before he quickly covered it. “I thought Bobby and I taught you better than that. If you’re feeling antsy, take it outside, do some sport, run it off.” _Go kill something that needs it._

Kyra rolled her eyes but fortunately didn’t comment. Her reaction came under the heading of sullen teenager anyway.

“What do you want to do about this?” Crowley asked Kaur.

“I _have_ to suspend her,” Kaur said. “Everyone saw the boy being stretchered out and he’s….quite popular. He’s one of the football team.” At that, Crowley had to concentrate hard on thoughts of Bobby’s illness to achieve a properly grim expression and _not_ smirk. “His parents will raise hell if there’s not an acknowledgment that Kyra….didn’t behave well. And, um, as an example to the other students that fighting is not tolerated here.”

“Can you promise to behave with more decorum in future?” Crowley demanded sternly and Kyra nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak and had to bite on her lip to keep from collapsing with laughter. _Raise hell,_ she thought and did not dare to look at Crowley again.

*

Kyra walked silently beside Crowley. She wondered why he didn’t ‘port them. No one was in the corridor outside Kaur’s office since classes were in session. He’d dropped the over the top Disappointed Father persona the moment they were alone and looked ahead as he walked, hands in his overcoat pockets.

“You know you don’t belong here,” he remarked.

“They were picking on a friend; well, a kid that I know….I suppose you think I should have let him be bullied?”

That got an indifferent shrug. “I’m sure you know the answer to that one, darling.” She was silent and he let it go. He said nothing about the _last_ time she’d responded to bullies, to her relief. 

“Is Bobby mad?”

“Only that he wasn’t well enough to confront the lioness.”

“He’ll be okay though?”

“Of course.” 

“Crowley, I’m worried about Bobby. It’s so hard getting proper medical care and he’s, you know….”

“He’s in his sixties, not nineties, darling, and he wouldn’t thank you for thinking he’s doddering. But nice try at changing the subject.”

“I don’t mean he’s doddering! I’m just worried. What happens when he does get really old?”

“Also,” the demon went on over this, “I will personally assure he’s at the very top of any doctor’s priorities.” He gave her a level, dark stare and Kyra nodded. “Enough of them are my clients, to be sure.”

They emerged on to the winter street and Kyra pulled on her fancy black leather jacket, her last Christmas present from Crowley. They seemed to be the only people in the world, not even any cars passing as they walked. Still the demon made no move to teleport and Kyra resigned herself to the fact that they were walking home in a near blizzard. Well. Windy and starting to snow.

“We had somebody talking to us today about what’s going to happen when we leave home, like go to college or move into apartments and stuff,” she said. Crowley turned his head, seeming amused.

“What a fearsome prospect.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Then don’t.”

“Bobby said I need to start thinking about college even though I’m not even a junior yet. The teachers say the same thing, that we’ve got to start planning. But how can I go and _live_ with a bunch of kids my age who act like….like…”

“Children?” he drawled and she nodded.

“I want to do something _real._ I want to be a hunter, Crowley, not something that needs college.”

“You haven’t been talking to Dean Winchester, have you?”

“No! It’s what I think.” She turned her head to give him a quick but intense stare. Crowley returned it, vastly amused and trying not to show it. It wasn’t lack of respect, he thought, it was lack of _fear_. Three years in the hunter life had given her knowledge about monsters, but she had never learned to number the demon who had made himself King of Hell among them. Even Bobby was sometimes careful around him, but Bobby had experienced Crowley’s darkness. Kyra had not. Yet she also bore a prophecy from a witch who had died from being possessed by Lucifer, that Kyra would become what could defeat him.

Prophecies, Crowley thought, were so difficult to interpret that you might as well not bother with them at all.

“You’re almost done with school anyway,” he said.

“That’s not what Bobby thinks,” Kyra cautioned, nervous of getting between them on the question. It was an unspoken truth among the three of them that Bobby, the mortal, had the deciding word on most things to do with Kyra’s upbringing.

Crowley shrugged in the heavy overcoat, turned to her again. They had both halted without realising it. “You’ve learned anything useful they have and what’s left for you to learn, you won’t pick up in a school.” The wind gusted fiercely, blowing Kyra – a light weight in comparison – against Crowley’s more solid bulk. Crowley steadied her and advised, “Hang on.”

“Will you _please_ port us?” Kyra asked in a squeak, gripping his arm.

In the next instant, they had dropped to the floor of a startled Bobby Singer’s bedroom. “Holy fuck,” the hunter let out. He remembered to breathe a few moments later. “Sorry, kid! But next time aim for the living room, not straight in here. I could’ve been na – you know.”

“There was a certain sense of urgency,” Crowley said, grinning.

“I was really cold,” Kyra admitted, brushing off flakes of snow.

Bobby sneezed several times, but then managed an almost clear breath. “I think you scared the bug out of me,” he commented. “What’s happened? She get expelled?”

“Right here,” Kyra muttered. “Why do you assume _I_ screwed up?”

“I used to get calls regularly from school principals when Dean was staying here, as a kid,” Bobby told her. “But it’s not an unfair assumption when you’re the one in their office.”

“Bully was pushing kid around,” Kyra said, in the tone of a first grader reciting their times table. “Bully’s friends were laughing and calling out. I told bully to stop. Bully did not stop. I punched bully in the nose – think I broke it – but it was _not_ hospital admission grade; he wimped out. Bully’s two friends tried to grab me. I, um, stopped them.”

“Did you tell this to the principal, whatsername?”

“Haep Kaur,” Crowley said with perfect pronunciation. “Not according to Ms Kaur, you didn’t. She did say you were the only one without an injury, but neither the other kids nor you would tell her what went on. Why in the name of my day job didn’t you tell her?”

“I didn’t think she’d believe me.”

“Mm, good point. So she thinks it was an accidental lucky hit?”

“Maybe?”

“Misdirection will do the rest,” Bobby said to Crowley. “But smarter not to show ‘em what you can do to start with. You could at least have said why you waded in.”

“Three boys, one a football jock, and she scored on all of them,” Crowley murmured to him. “Not sure I’d want that getting around either. Surely you remember your own admittedly distant schooldays, Robert?” Bobby glared at him. “If she tells, next time it won’t be three, it’ll be ten and they’ll all beat on her. And there would be more questions from the adults on how come Kyra can do this. Lots of attention.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Bobby sighed. “Did you get suspended?”

“A week,” Kyra said.

“Go and get cleaned up and put some dry things on. Last thing we need is you getting my cold. Mind, it might be too late for that now, get out of here!”

Kyra grinned and obeyed. Bobby sank back against his pillows to watch Crowley removing his layers from overcoat down to shirt and trousers before joining him on the bed. “Sounds like you did good,” the hunter remarked as he made room. _But if he thinks I’m up for an afternoon tryst, probably not yet!_

“Don’t let that get around, darling. No, it was fun. I channelled Robert Young.”

“Who?”

“Fifties actor, _Father Knows Best_.” As Bobby groaned and covered his face dramatically with his palm, Crowley went on thoughtfully. “I also gave my card to a Ms Janice Marie Dickson in the principal’s office – the minion of Ms Kaur who phoned us.”

“I think you’ll find she’s a secretary,” Bobby suggested. “Uh…..your card?”

Crowley snapped his fingers and a black business card appeared, floating from his hand to Bobby’s. The hunter turned it over, bemused as he sniffed the sulphurous scent which clung to the card. Crowley’s name appeared in fiery gothic lettering as he looked – actually _Crowley: King of Hell. Deals made. Wishes granted._ Below that, a cell phone number.

“You did a soul deal in Kyra’s school?!”

“Merely set up the possibility,” Crowley said, shrugging. He held out his hand and the card flew back to him and vanished. Crowley traced a fingernail down Bobby’s muscular forearm, seeming totally absorbed in the caress. “She was wishing so hard for a way to, um, solve a current problem she has that I couldn’t help but pick it up. She’ll probably never call.”

“Oh geez.” But Bobby made no further objection, knowing most likely that he had no real authority in this. Crowley mostly kept his more Hellish activities separate from the mortals who made up his family, but that didn’t mean he had abandoned said activities. Bobby sneezed again. “Not up for much fun tonight,” he added apologetically. “Should be better tomorrow, I hope.”

Crowley leaned his head against the hunter’s shoulder, closing his eyes as he felt Bobby Singer put his arm around him. “Hell hounds don’t heel, love,” he murmured, almost to himself. “But we do stay close to our own.”


End file.
